Music editing applications allow music composers, media artists, and other users to create and edit a musical performance stored as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data. Users can import MIDI data files or compose musical pieces stored as MIDI data and use tools provided by the music editing application to edit the sequences of notes in the MIDI data. For example, a graphical user interface (GUI) of such a music editing application can allow users to modify one or more characteristics of the MIDI data, such as the pitch, the timing, the duration, and the velocity (or “loudness”) of the sequences of recorded notes in the MIDI files. MIDI data does not have the ability to carry all of the data that is required to reproduce all of the playing characteristics of a musical instrument. A printed score encounters the same problem.